by Jane Graves
Endless moments later, Nick's breathing slowed. He fell to one side and rolled to his back. He gathered her in his arms and they lay there together, listening to the pounding rain. She couldn't believe that after all this time she was with him again, the man she'd tried so hard to forget but had never been able to. He'd been there every night when she lay down to sleep, smiling at her from the edges of her mind, and even in her daydreams he would show up unexpectedly and make love to her just like this. The rain still came down in torrents, but she barely heard it. The only thing that registered was the voice in her own head saying, Yes. This is it. He's the one. How could I ever have thought he wasn't?
She remembered how she'd adored Randall in the beginning, or at least the picture of him she had inside her head. But until she came to Montego Bay, she hadn’t really accepted that the reality of him wasn’t nearly as enticing as the fantasy.
Then she thought about the boy on the beach.
She would have children. She couldn't live her life without them. But if she had them with Randall, soon they'd become entangled in the web of expectations that oozed through the Baxter family. They'd take whatever child she had, mold him with all those expectations, and then spit him out on the other end, a little replica of Randall. Or maybe he'd end up like Nick instead and resent his family for the rest of his life. Either way, she hated the thought of it.
Randall offered her security. But at what price? And was it really the kind of security she was looking for?
"Nick?" she said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"What would you have done if you and I were going to Napa and our flight had been cancelled?"
"Well, let's see. I'd have taken you to a wine store, picked out a couple of bottles of the best cheap wine money could buy, then brought you back to my place."
"Yeah?"
"And then I'd have spread a blanket on the floor, opened one of the bottles, and toasted our lousy air travel karma. Then pretty soon we'd be drinking our wine naked and saying, 'Who needs Napa?'"
Because nothing would have mattered as long as they were together.
A few minutes later, they took off their wet clothes and showered together. After putting on the robes provided by the inn, Nick called housekeeping. He slipped the maid a generous tip, and she cleaned their room, changed the linens, and took their clothes to be laundered, assuring them she'd have them back that evening. They called for a bite to eat from room service, then crawled back into bed.
There was still the occasional crash of lightning, followed by the rumble of thunder. Eventually the thunder faded into the distance, and the deluge of rain became a light patter against the windows. Sarah loved just lying there, feeling the heat radiating from Nick’s body, feeling his heartbeat, feeling him.
"Once in a lifetime," Nick whispered.
"What?"
"That's how often this comes along. Only once. That's why I'm never letting you go."
Sarah felt a shiver of awareness, a sense of something bigger between them than she'd ever imagined. The Nick she'd known in Park City was alternately wild and funny, daring and demanding, a man who shocked and surprised her in every good way there was and was never serious for long. But now, as he swiveled his head to look at her and their eyes met, the intensity he exuded hit her like a hurricane force wind. He'd said it before, but now the words weren't necessary—she read his expression as clearly as if he'd shouted it. You're mine. You were mine in Park City, and you're still mine.
Randall was possessive, but this was different. So different. She wasn't Nick's to own. Not his to show off.
She was his to love.
When Nick woke the next morning, it was a moment before he realized where he was, and when he remembered, he was flooded by a feeling of warmth and contentment. It had finally happened. He'd finally held Sarah in his arms again and made love to her, and it had been even better than he could possibly have imagined.
Instead of the patter of rain, he heard the call of birds. The sun's warm yellow rays poured through the blinds, casting a pattern of light and shadow on the wall beside the bed. But as beautiful as it was, the weather transformation from last night made him strangely anxious. The rain had trapped them there, making it impossible for them to address the situation back at the resort even if they'd wanted to. But now…
He'd fallen asleep worrying about what was going to happen today, and his apprehension hadn't faded. He had the most terrible feeling that if he didn't hold on to Sarah, keep her in his sight every moment, that somehow she would slip through his fingers just as she had that morning in Park City. Driven to touch her again, he reached to the bed next to him.
She wasn't there.
He whipped around to see nothing but empty sheets and blankets. He sat bolt upright, panic surging through him.
"Sarah? Sarah!"
He threw the blankets back and started to stand, only to hear footsteps. When she came out of the bathroom, relief surged through him. She wore her freshly laundered clothes, looking radiant in the morning sun.
He held out his hand. "Come here."
She walked over and took his hand. He pulled her down to the bed and enveloped her in his arms.
"I thought you were gone," he whispered.
"No," she said. "Never again."
Thank God.
"I ordered a pot of coffee," she said. "I could sure use a cup."
"What's the matter?" he said. "Still sleepy?"
Her mouth eased into a smile. "We were up really late last night."
Yes. And every moment had been a dream come true.
"The coffee will be here in a few minutes," she said. "In the meantime, maybe you should get dressed. We need to catch the shuttle soon."
Nick reluctantly let her go and rose from the bed. He went to the bathroom and got dressed, and each moment that passed was more excruciating than the last. He just wanted this to be over. He wanted to put all this behind them. He wanted his brother out of the picture.
And he wanted Sarah to himself.
As he came out of the bathroom, he heard a knock at the door. Coffee. Thank God. But when he swung the door open, he got the shock of his life.
Randall?
18
Sarah heard the loud bang of the door smacking into the wall. She turned around, stunned to see Randall storm into the room. Nick tried to stand his ground, but the surprise of seeing his brother immobilized him just long enough for Randall to grab him by the collar and throw a punch that caught him in the face. Nick's head whipped back and he staggered sideways, falling to the floor. He lay there a few seconds, looking disoriented, then came to his feet, breathing hard, blood dripping from his nose. When he made a move toward Randall, Sarah raced to his side and grabbed his arm to pull him back.
"Nick! Don't! Please don't!" She whipped around to Randall. "What are you doing here?"
"You didn't answer your phone. I wanted to make sure you were back in time for the wedding, so I rented a car and came up here."
Her phone. Damn. With no cord to charge it, it was probably dead.
"Was he here all night with you?" Randall said.
She didn't respond.
"Was he here all night with you?"
"Yes! But—"
"You son of a bitch," he said to Nick. "You don't take what's mine. Ever.”
He lunged for Nick again, but Sarah wedged herself between them. "Randall! You have to calm down. We have to talk. I have to tell you everything. Where this began—"
"I'm not interested in—"
"Yes, you are! For once you're going to listen to me!"
Randall clamped his mouth shut, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. Sarah took a deep, calming breath. "Before I met you, I met Nick."
Randall's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"We met in Park City. At the film festival."
Randall looked back and forth between them. "When?"
"Sarah," Nick warned. "Don't go into that now."
"A year ago," she said.
Randall looked confused. "You and I met a year ago."
"Yes. On the plane when I was coming back from…" She let out a breath. "From being with Nick."
"Being with him?"
"Sarah," Nick said. "Stop talking. The more you say right now, the worse things are going to be."
"No! He has to know everything." She turned back to Randall. "We spent three days together." She paused. "And nights."
"Are you telling me that just before you met me, you slept with my brother?"
"Yes. But I didn't know he was your brother.”"And you've been seeing him behind my back all this time?"
"No! It was just a fling! At the time that was all it was. I didn't leave him any way to get in touch with me, so I didn't see him again until he showed up for the wedding."
"And you still didn't tell me what went on in Park City?"
"No," she said nervously. "I was afraid of what you'd do."
"And now you're in a hotel room together? You're marrying me in two hours, and you're sleeping with him?"
Sarah put her hand against her chest, trying to calm her racing heart. She knew she should regret being with Nick last night, but how could she? If it hadn't happened, she might have married Randall, and suddenly she couldn't imagine her life going in that direction. She couldn't imagine any life that didn't have Nick in it.
Tell him. Say it now. Say it, say it say it…
"I'm sorry, Randall," she said. "There's not going to be a wedding."
She waited for another explosion, but he didn't move. The fury was still evident on his face, but at the same time she could almost feel his brain working. It was as if he was slowly shifting into CEO mode, as if she'd proposed a business problem that required a business solution.
He turned to Nick, a calculating expression on his face. "So tell me. When you hopped a plane to Jamaica, did you know my fiancee was the woman you'd met in Park City?"
Nick stared evenly at his brother. "Yeah. I knew."
"How?"
"Facebook."
Sarah braced herself for more violence, but it never came. Instead, Randall smiled—an odd, tight-lipped smile that curled his mouth but never made it to his eyes.
"Well, Sarah, it's pretty clear what's going on here."
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't I tell you to watch out for Nick? That he'd cause trouble?" He shook his head. Even laughed a little. "If only you'd told me what he was up to, I could have saved you a lot of grief."
"I-I don't understand."
"Let me guess what happened next. As soon as he arrived, he started getting close to you. Telling you what a horrible person I am. Saying you'd be a fool to marry me. I'm betting he was positively relentless. Is that right?"
Sarah felt a twinge of apprehension. It was exactly right.
"Then he came on to you. Eventually lured you up here. I bet he even told you he was in love with you." Randall turned to Nick. "Gotta hand it to you. You worked fast this time.”
Sarah felt a rush of foreboding. "What are you talking about?"
"Funny how history repeats itself, isn't it, Nick?"
"Sarah," Nick said. "Don't listen to him!"
"Oh, no," Randall said. "She'll definitely want to hear this." He looked at Sarah. "I had a girlfriend once. Everything was great between us. At least it was until Nick got involved.”
"Don't go there, Randall," Nick said. "Don't you dare—"
"He slept with her behind my back."
Sarah whipped around to look at Nick, waiting for him to deny it, but he didn't say a word.
“She told me she didn't want to see me anymore," Randall went on. "Why? Because she was in love with my brother. Does anything about this sound familiar?"
Familiar? It was the same story. Oh, God. The very same...
"It's bad enough that he stole her from me," Randall went on. "What's worse is that one week later, he broke up with her. One week. He never wanted her. He just wanted to take away something that was mine. There's a lesson there for you, Sarah. Are you paying attention?"
An icy chill crept up Sarah's spine. She turned to Nick. “Is that true? Did you do that?”
Randall laughed disdainfully. “Come on, Sarah. Is it really so hard to believe that he'd coax a woman to cheat behind my back? After all, he's here with you while you're engaged to me, isn't he?"
Yes. He was. And the parallel was too much to ignore.
She needed Nick to tell her it wasn't true. She desperately needed him to look her in the eye and say that Randall was embellishing the story just to drive them apart.
"Nick…?" she said, clinging to a tiny shred of hope. "Is Randall telling the truth?"
Nick stared at her for another few seconds, then let out a harsh sigh. "Yes. I slept with his girlfriend. But there’s more to the story than that.”
Sarah felt a sickening swoop in her stomach, as if the floor had crumbled away beneath her feet. She'd questioned Nick's motives from the beginning. Knew there was bad blood between him and Randall. And still she'd closed her eyes to it, letting him draw her in, make her want him, push her to the brink of falling in love with him…
"At least he’s not denying it," Randall said. "Maybe he’s not the liar I thought he was.”
"Shut up, Randall.” Nick turned to Sarah. “This is what happened. She had a date with him one night, and he stood her up. It wasn’t the first time, or even the second. He treated her like every other woman he’d ever dated. He strung her along. He used her when he wanted her and ignored her when he didn’t. She came to my apartment that night in tears, asking me if I knew where she stood with him. We had a drink or two. One thing led to another. Then she came on to me.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Randall shouted. “She didn’t come on to you. You seduced her!”
“I did not seduce her! All that girl wanted was for somebody to pay attention to her!”
Those words struck Sarah with painful clarity, resonating with everything she’d felt since arriving in Montego Bay. Maybe she’d even felt it for months now. He used her when he wanted her and ignored her when he didn’t.
“Oh, you paid attention to her, all right,” Randall said. “You got hot sex and revenge on the brother you hated, all in one tidy little package.” He turned to Sarah. “Well, there you go. Case closed.”
“No, damn it! This case is not closed!” Nick bowed his head for a moment, then lifted it again. “You know what my childhood was like,” he said to Sarah. “Randall belittled me. Taunted me. Made me believe I was worthless. He was always the golden boy, and our parents treated me like crap. That ripped me apart back then, more than you'll ever know.”
“So you slept with his girlfriend? Then dumped her?”
“I couldn’t keep leading her on! What else was I supposed to do?” He let out a harsh breath. “I was a nineteen-year-old kid. I’d taken a lifetime of crap. And because of that, I made a really bad decision. I’m not proud of it, and if I could take back, I would. But it doesn’t matter what happened back then. It has no bearing on what’s happening between us now. You have to believe that!”
Sarah’s mind felt murky, as if was swimming around in a dark pool of indecision. “I-I don’t know what to believe.”
“You can believe this. I’m not that kid anymore. I came to terms with my childhood a long time ago. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over and done with. I don’t waste one single second of any day dreaming up ways to get revenge, because I just don’t give a damn anymore. That’s not what this is, Sarah. It’s not.”
Was that really true? Or was he actually the lying opportunist Randall said he was, who would use her and toss her away without so much as a backward glance? She didn’t know. She just didn’t know!
Tears stung her eyes, and she swiped them away with the back of her hand. She looked back and forth between Randall and Nick, but nothing about either of them made any sense to her anymore. She didn’t know what to do. Who to believe.
Who to love.
Nick inched closer, and when he spoke, his voice was trembling with emotion. “There’s only one reason I’d try to take you away from Randall, and it has nothing to do with revenge. It’s because he’ll never love you the way you should be loved. And I will."
Sarah wanted desperately to believe him, but everything Randall told her seemed so horribly, painfully logical. Nick had behaved just as Randall said. He'd captivated her, made her promises, insisted he loved her and wanted to be with her when they'd been together only a matter of days. Days, when she'd spent the past year building a relationship with Randall. What if she ran away with Nick, only to have him turn around a week from now and say, Sorry. Did I say I love you? Never mind. I don't know what I was thinking.
Maybe Randall was right. Maybe Nick really had seduced that other woman, and now she was being just as gullible. The humiliation of that was more than she could stand.
"I don't believe you," she said.
"Sarah—"
"I don't believe you!"
A look of anguish came over his face. “Are you're saying there's no future for us?”
"Future? Why would I want a future with you after this?"
Nick slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was as if the light had disappeared from them. "I don't blame you for feeling that way. But please, please—whatever you do, don't ruin your life by marrying Randall."
"As if he'd have me now?" she shouted. "As if he'd ever forget I cheated on him with his brother? Damn it, Nick! Why did you come here? Why? If you'd never shown up, everything would have been just fine!"
"Do you really believe that?"
She didn't know. The only thing she knew for sure was that all her dreams had just blown up in her face. The future she'd imagined with Nick had withered up and died, and the wedding she'd dreamed of all her life would never come to pass, either. Randall could never look at her again without remembering how she'd betrayed him. She'd come to Jamaica with a bright, shiny future filled with everything wonderful life had to offer.